Solar Storms

A novel of sharp beauty and sudden illuminations, by an acclaimed Chickasaw poet and novelist, Solar Storms is the saga of five generations of Native American women and their struggle for their land and their way of life.

Abused and relinquished by her mother when very young, Angel has been moved from foster home to foster home. A rebellious, hurt, and literally scarred teenager, she sets out to search for her birth family, her mother, and herself. Finding her way to the remote region where she was born, Angel reencounters the brittle cold world where her ancestors have withstood both the harsh dangers of nature and the incursion of hostile outsiders. Here she reunites with Agnes, her great-grandmother; Dora-Rouge, her great-great-grandmother; and Bush, the woman who adopted Angel's mother and raised Angel when she was a young girl. But before Angel can settle into her new home, this recently rejoined family of women sets off by canoe on a journey to their ancestral homeland in the far North, where a hydroelectric dam project is under way. There Angel finds herself caught in a conflict that threatens two indigenous tribes, their ties to the land, and Angel's very essence as she tries to resolve her inner turmoil over who she is and where she belongs. Robust and poetic, Solar Storms has the feel of a richly woven tapestry. Both as a story of love and family, and as a parable of the Native American quest to reclaim a lost way of life, the novel not only fulfills the enormous expectations raised by Linda Hogan's previous work, it surpasses it.

Publishers Weekly

In her luminous, quietly compelling second novel, Hogan, a Chickasaw poet and writer (whose first novel, Mean Spirit, was a finalist for the Pulitzer), ties a young woman's coming-of-age to the fate of the natural world she comes to inhabit. Angela Jensen, a troubled 17-year-old, narrates the tale of her return to Adam's Rib, an island town in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. Tucked into a pristine landscape of countless islands, wild animals and desperately harsh winters, it's her Native American family's homeland. As a child, Angela was abandoned by her mother, Hannah Wing, but not before Hannah had permanently scarred half of Angela's face; earlier, Hannah herself had been separated from her family and unspeakably abused. In Adam's Rib, Angela is reunited with her great-grandmother, Agnes Iron, and Agnes's mother, Dora-Rouge; she also spends a winter with Bush, a solitary woman who briefly raised her and, years earlier and also briefly, raised Hannah. Just as Angela discovers through her family's elemental way of life her own blood ties to the land, the threat of a huge hydroelectric dam project ruins her idyll. The four women-Angela, Agnes, Dora-Rouge and Bush-embark on a dangerous journey far northward to visit the homeland, where Hannah Wing is known to live. Hogan's finely tuned descriptions of the land and its spiritual significance draw a parallel between the ravages suffered by the environment and those suffered by Angela's mother. And, as the land is transformed, so are the lives of the characters, often in deeply resonant ways. (Oct.)

Linda Hogan

Linda Hogan was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Mean Spirit. Her other honors include an American Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.